Ruben Amaro the Genius, JP Ricciardi the Dunce

Winner

 

 

 

 

 

Loser

 

 

 

 

 

All my life I have dreamt about a career in sports; player, broadcaster, executive, any would have been great. In retrospect, I think I may have passed on GM of a major sports franchise. I wrote earlier about Roy Halladay and the need for Toronto and Philadelphia to make a deal and GMs Ruben Amaro of the Phillies and JP Ricciardi of the Bluejays (both seen above) went toe to toe to make it happen. After watching this week, one can’t help but think that rookie GM Amaro made Ricciardi look like a fool and bitch-slapped JP and the Bluejays by procuring Cliff Lee from Cleveland for a pittance next to what the greedy Jays were asking for Halladay. Meanwhile the Bluejays overplayed their hand and now still have a great, albeit disappointed pitcher in Halladay.

Amaro is a disciple of the always cautious but wonderfully successful Pat Gillick. Meanwhile, Ricciardi was brought up by the master of Moneyball super fleecer and also very successful Billy Beane. It appears that Ricciardi either dramatically underestimated Amaro or overestimated his market position. Ricciardi has been widely speculated to be a “dead man walking” with his only chance of survival being a drastic salary purge of the Bluejays bloated budget. Plus his current wishy washy handling of the Halladay affair and wide spread use of the local and national media in trade “negotiations”, did nothing to endear himself to already jaded Toronto fans. By asking for a king’s ransom for Halladay and not budging, Ricciardi watched the trade market shift gears and blow right by him. This most likely cemented his fate as a casualty of the trade wars this coming off-season.

Meanwhile, with his Cliff Lee acquisition, Amaro has come up smelling like a rose. That’s not an easy task in Philadelphia which is widely known for its tough press corps and even tougher fan base. By bringing in Lee and earlier Raul Ibanez in free agency, Amaro has Philly fans thinking repeat of their 2008 World Series Championship.

A week ago one GM was the Master, the other the novice; in a week the Master is a dunce and the Novice a genius. Yep, the world of a GM is way too fickle for me…